By Mike Ward
Houston Chronicle
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas and Oklahoma officials are blaming each other for the release from a Texas prison of a convicted thief who two weeks ago killed a bank president and seriously wounded a teller during a bullet-studded bank robbery in a small Sooner State town.
Authorities confirmed that Cedric Lamont Norris, 39, was released in Texas on parole not once, but twice, in five years even though Oklahoma officials still wanted him for prison sentences totaling 70 years.
In all the twists and turns of the case, they agree on this: He never should have gotten out.
Norris died Jan. 21 in a shoot-out with pursuing lawmen after holding up the Bank of Eufaula while dressed as a woman. A hostage taken as Norris fled the bank in the small community was seriously wounded several miles away when he opened fire on police, investigators said.
Texas officials have also identified Norris as a suspect in the beating of an Irving gas station clerk during a robbery just three days before the bank holdup.
Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said Monday that while Oklahoma officials had filed paperwork years ago to have Norris returned when his Texas prison sentence was over, they failed to attach required court documents that would have allowed Texas to hold him kept him in custody.
“It’s our practice to contact the jurisdiction that send the incomplete forms and inform them that the additional paperwork needed to be sent to us,” he said. “And that’s what we believe occurred in this case. I can tell you those documents are not in our file.”
Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said that explanation is not convincing.
“How, in these days when we have cell phones and the Internet, can people just release someone who owes 70 years to the State of Oklahoma without answering all the questions that should be asked,” He said. “This is not that hard Why did Texas parole this man when he owed all this time in another state? He would have been just as dangerous to your citizens as he was to the people in Oklahoma.”
Officials in both states said they are reviewing the case to make sure it never happens again.
Norris’ criminal history in the two states began in Oklahoma with a weapons charge in the 1990s, and auto theft and theft charges in Texas in 2000 — for which he served short stints.
In April 2005 he was sentenced to two years in a Texas prison for burglarizing a building in Dallas. Oklahoma officials about that same time issued arrest warrants for him for jewelery store robberies just a few months earlier in Tulsa and suburban Sapulpa, where he was accused of stealing $12,000 in diamonds.That July, Tulsa County officials filed an extradition warrant with Texas prison officials to ensure that they got him back when his Texas sentence was over. He was returned to Tulsa in December 2005 and, after a trial where officials say Norris represented himself, he got a 10-year prison sentence in Tulsa and a 60-year sentence in Sapulpa, in neighboring Creek County.
Tulsa County records show prosecutors at the time filed required forms to place a detainer on him once he finished his prison time in Texas. Copies of those forms show Tulsa Conty officials at that time placed a “detainer” on Norris to have him returned when his Texas sentence ended. They listed his new 10-year-sentence, and checked a box on the form saying that a copy of his court-ordered judgment and sentence was attached.
Clark said it never made it into the Texas file.
Just three weeks after Norris returned to a Texas prison cell, records show he was out on parole for the first time — on so-called mandatory supervision, a controversial early-release program, because he had served most of his time.
That was in January. By that September, Norris was back in prison in Texas, convicted on two theft charges for which he got six years each. A year later, in October 2008, Norris received a 12-year prison sentence stemming from a 2005 robbery in Hopkins County, east of Dallas, according to prison records.
After serving two years, Norris appeared to be tiring of prison life in Texas, In July 2010, he petitioned then-District Judge April Seilers to have him brought back to Oklahoma to serve his time there.
He noted that Texas officials had said they had no detainer for him in their files.
“I have been advised that I cannot be transported to Oklahoma prison until Creek County places a detainer to have me brought to Oklahoma,” Norris stated in a handwritten letter to the judge. This should have already been done by Creek County. I’m simply requesting that Creek County place detainer to Mr. Norris can start his sentence in Oklahoma which is controlling case. I pray this court to direct Creek County Sheriff to place and execute detainer on Cedric L. Norris.”
That detainer was never filed, Clark said.
Fast forward another two years to March 2012, when Norris was released again on parole in Texas. Aftertwo write-ups for not following the rules — for which he served brief time in a detention center — parole officials said he appeared to be turning his life around. He last checked in with his parole officer in Dallas, where he lived, just days before the gas station robbery and a week before he robbed the Oklahoma bank.
“He did not have permission to be in Oklahoma,” Clark said.
For their part, both Tulsa County Kunzweiler and Creek County District Attorney Max Woods say they intend to make sure that the miscue that allowed Norris to go free in Texas never happens again.
“I’m not going to let this go,” Kunzweiler said Monday, saying he is looking at recommending changes in Oklahoma statutes to fix any problems.
“Knowing the people involved in my office, I can’t believe that judgment and sentence was not filed with Texas There are ways to ensure that people are being properly released from prison. This should never happen again.”
Copyright 2016 the Houston Chronicle